


Plushies and Panic

by butyoucantnemo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Female Peter Parker, Fluff, Gen, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Stuffed Toys, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23074945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butyoucantnemo/pseuds/butyoucantnemo
Summary: Tony’s learned a lot about Penny since meeting her. He’s learned her likes and dislikes, how she acts around certain things and people, and most recently, how she copes with her anxiety when she’s alone. And let’s just say, it’s not what he expected....
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 36
Kudos: 301





	Plushies and Panic

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!! I honestly have no idea how this story came to be but here it is anyway!
> 
> (All mistakes aren’t mine.)
> 
> Hope you enjoy! :)

Tony’s learned a lot about Penny since meeting her. He’s learned that she loves to sing and dance at the most random and inopportune moments, that she’s unhealthy obsessed with Star Wars, and that she knows just about everything regarding to Disney World, and yet has never been.

(After that admission, Tony immediately booked tickets from them to go, as well as Pepper, May, Rhodey, and Happy.)

He’s also learned that Penny is a huge bookworm, that she says she hates dresses but secretly loves them, and that her guilty pleasure is chocolate ice cream on potato chips. 

Tony swears he learns something new about her mentee everyday, like a few days ago when he learned how badly Penny suffers from severe anxiety and nightmares (to go with her heightened senses that always seemed to negatively affect her), and that the only way to ease her is comfort of any sort. 

The two were working in the lab, like any other Friday night, when there was a lull in their conversation. Silence in between conversations wasn’t abnormal for them—sometimes they just didn’t have anything to talk about in that moment—but what was abnormal was Penny’s quick breathing cutting through the silence. 

Quickly dropping the tools he was working with, Tony turns to his left to see Penny, at her own workstation about 5 feet from him, with her hands frantically shaking, her chest rising and falling too quickly from her erratic breathing, and her eyes filling with tears as she tried to calm herself down. Realizing the signs of an anxiety attack, Tony moves closer to her—but not close enough to touch her, knowing her heightened senses sometimes meant that she didn’t like anything touching her—and starts talking to her in an attempt to get her to calm down. 

“Hey, hey, Pen? Penny, you gotta calm down, honey. You gotta breathe. Think you can breathe with me?” Tony asks the overwhelmed girl, trying to keep his cool in order to help her. He watches as Penny comprehends what he’s saying and attempts to match his breathing. 

Even as her breathing starts to slow down to match his, Tony notices the girl’s eyes flooding with fresh tears and her hands that are still frantically shaking. The thing that catches his eye most is how her arms seem to be stretched out and that her hands look like they’re clenching and unclenching, almost as if she was trying to grab onto him. 

Seeing to understand what she wants, Tony hesitantly moves closer to the girl, until his arms make contact with her shaky, outstretched hands. Immediately, Penny’s hands clench around his arms—not enough to hurt, but enough to heighten his worry for the girl even more. The moment her hands grab his arms, Penny seems to slump out of relief, her breathing slowing down even more and her hands beginning to slow down from shaking. 

The two remain in their positions for a long couple of minutes, Tony letting his mentee get back to her normal state and Penny trying not to think about how she just had an anxiety attack in front of her mentor. 

After about 10 minutes, Penny finally lifts her eyes up from where they were drilling holes into the floor and shyly looks at Tony to gage his reaction. All she finds on his face is a warm, but significantly worried expression of her pseudo-father’s face. 

“You good, kiddo?” Tony questions in a soft tone as he watches Penny lift her head up and look at him. 

“No,” Penny says in an sheepish tone, as if she was embarrassed about breaking down in front of the man. 

“Hey, none of that,” Tony lightly reprimands with a shake of his head, “you can’t help it and you definitely should not be embarrassed about what just happened.” When his words were met with silence from the girl, Tony gently urged his arms out of the girl’s iron-clad grip, and before she could pull away and distance herself with a wounded and guarded expression, he pulled the girl tightly into his arms. 

Safely in her hero’s arms, Penny found herself fully relaxing for the first time since the panic attack. All she could do was hold onto him tight and be thankful that she had someone in her life that understand what she was going through and was there to help. 

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Tony finally speaks up, asking, “What happens if someone’s not there when you panic, kiddo? I know May’s there for you when you need her but she’s not always home and you’re not always with her.”

Penny’s cheeks heat up as she answers in a small voice, “It don’t want to say. It’s embarrassing,” as she buried herself even further into her mentor’s arms, hoping he’ll drop the question and let the thought go. 

Not backing down from the conversation, Tony says in a stern but warm voice, “C’mon Pen. Just tell me. You don’t have to be embarrassed around me. I’m just trying to help.” Once he says this, he feels Penny tighten her arms around him before glancing up at him with bright red cheeks and shy eyes. 

“If I’m not at home, I usually plug my headphones in, listen to music, and try to coach myself into breathing normally by listening to both my music and the heartbeats around me,” Penny admits while bashfully looking at her mentor. 

Realizing she’s not going to give him a complete answer unless prompted, Tony continues, “And if you are at home?”

As her cheeks heat up, more than what should be humanly possible, Penny hides her face into his chest and mumbles, “I cuddle my stuffed animals.”

Not able to hear her muffled words, Tony nudges her until she looks up at him and says with amusement, “Sorry, Ink Pen, but not all of us have super hearing.”

With a little huff of laughter, Penny looks him directly in the eyes and shyly repeats, “I cuddle my stuffed animals.” After seeing his slightly surprised face, she begins to nervously explain, “It’s just…I know they’re always there and they help with my senses and they’re super soft and it’s not like I can burden them with my problems since they’re not real and I love to cuddle, especially after an anxiety attack or nightmare and I—“

“Hey, hey, kid, you don’t have to explain yourself. I understand. I just never knew that about you,” Tony says as he feels her begin to pull away from his arms in her nervous, awkward state. He gently pulls her back into her arms and waits for her to respond. 

After being eased back into his arms, Penny responds with a hint of sarcasm, “Well it’s not like I go around announcing that I cuddle with stuffed animals when I get overwhelmed. Imagine what people would say if they knew Spidergirl was childish enough to cuddle with some animals when the going gets tough.”

“Penny,” Tony warns in a very father-like tone, “there is absolutely nothing wrong with how you cope and just because you like to cuddle doesn’t make you an less of a superhero,” he finishes in soft tone as he playfully pitches her cheeks. She lets out a surprised yelp and playfully dodges his hand as she lets out a deep laugh at his antics. 

Calming down from their little playing, Tony tells Penny in a serious tone, “Kiddo, you know I’m here for you whenever you need me, okay? You call me whenever you need and I’ll answer. I don’t care if it’s from a nightmare at 3 o’clock in the morning or an anxiety attack in the middle of the school day. You call me and I answer. Hell, I’ll even make you an Iron Man plushie if you would rather cuddle that than ask me for help, though I’d prefer you just ask me. You gotta know that I’m here for you kid. I’m always on your side.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Penny responds, pouring as much love and gratitude into that sentence as possible and resting her head back onto her mentor’s chest, just enjoying the moment.

—————————————————————————————

The next week, after the Friday of her anxiety attack, Penny comes over to the tower for their weekly internship day. When she went to put her overnight bags in her room, ready to work for a while and then relax on the couch while watching a movie with her mentor once it got late, she let out a surprised yelp and dropped her bags when she saw every inch of her bed covered in the softest looking stuffed animals. And in front and center of the abundance of figures was an Iron Man plushie with a sticky note, reading, “Heard you like to cuddle with stuffed animals. ;)”

Bursting with laughter, Penny picked up the Iron Man plushie and hugged it tight to her chest, thanking any God listening for the chance to have Tony in her life, looking out for her. And with that, she walked out of her room and made her way to Tony’s lab, fully prepared to spend the entire night with the plushie in her arms, whether she was working or not. 

And on that day, Tony learned yet another thing about Penny: she absolutely adored her Iron Man plushie.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: I still have my stuffed animal from when I was little and I can’t sleep without it, even now that I’m well into high school. I definitely think it’s a way to cope with my anxiety so I figured, why not have Penny cope the same way?
> 
> Also, I’m in the mood for everything related to Disney so I’m considering writing Tony, Penny, and the others’ trip to Disney World. Let me know if that is something you’d be interested in reading.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!!


End file.
